Improving customers’ homes to move towards a greener future - North Devon Homes

Here at North Devon Homes we are working with our customers towards a greener future and reducing our carbon footprint. In our corporate plan from 2021 – 2024 we have pledged to work on ensuring all our homes have an energy rating of band C or above by 2030.

This not only helps reduce our impact on the planet but also helps to lower our customer’s bills and keep their homes warmer in the cold weather. We are delighted that we are already seeing results with this as part of our planned home improvements programme where we are, for example, upgrading boilers in our customer’s homes to be even more efficient.

For our customers living in the more remote and rural parts of our area, where they do not have mains gas, energy efficiency is different and can be harder to achieve. However we are committed to tackling this also and last year, along with a group of social housing providers across the South West, we were successful in bidding for and obtaining £5 million of Wave 1 funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF). With our portion of the funding win, we have been working on upgrading 48 homes in our off-gas areas.

All the bungalows that we are improving through this work will have the existing cavity wall insulation removed and refilled, with external wall insulation applied. Each property will also receive new windows and where needed, will receive a more thermally efficient front or rear door. We are also upgrading heating systems, where required.

The completion of the works should ensure that each property is achieving an energy performance rating above a band C.

As well as improving the thermal performance and cost of living in these properties, this is a fantastic learning opportunity for us to understand more about reducing carbon emissions and improving energy efficiency in the future for our other homes and customers. It is also a great chance for us to work closely with our customers.

Along with our Energy Champion, we are supporting our customers throughout this journey as works take place on their homes, sharing with them our learnings, and getting a real understanding of their needs, preferences and how they want to live in their homes.

With the colder weather just around the corner high fuel prices and the cost of living crisis pose a real concern, so we are pleased that this work taking place will help make customers’ homes more energy efficient, more comfortable and reduce carbon emissions.

We are further delighted that we were successful, with other social housing providers across the South West, in securing further funding from the SHDF Wave 2 fund which will enable ‘fabric first’ measures to a further 120 of our homes. This money will help us to increase roof and external wall insulation over the next two years. Together, we will have secured investment and delivered improvements for 160 families or households when this work is complete.

We are committed to working closely with our involved customers as well as all our residents and other landlords across the South West to continue on our mission to increase energy efficiency in our homes and are continuing to seek further funding to help reach our targets.